LLStyle Story: 3 Mismatched Floors and One Fix | Renovation Q & A with Sandy

We love nothing more than to see our flooring products living out in the world, adorning people’s spaces and helping them to love their homes. This year, DIY interior designer Sandy Jandu—the mastermind behind Ellee Home—installed Duravana Hybrid Resilient Waterproof Flooring in the main floor of her home.

We caught up with Sandy to review the DIY install, see what challenges she ran into along the way, and find out how her Duravana floors have stood up to one huge dog, two cats, a 6-year-old, and a “heavy-lumbering” husband.

LL Style: So, give us some background on your recent flooring project with Duravana?

Sandy Jandu: Well, I’ve been looking to install new flooring because the flooring we had before was so awful, and I decided to try out Duravana because of its long-lasting durability. The first phase was to get samples and put them to work.
 
After I picked out samples of some looks I liked, I had to test them out, so I had my cat scratch the boards and submerged them in water overnight. Through those tests, everything looked good and I was able to see which stain I liked, eventually narrowing it down to Tacoma Oak.

LL: What drew you to the Duravana Tacoma Oak style?

JS: We got five options with different stains, and Tacoma Oak was the color my husband and I could agree on. There were two others we liked, but couldn’t come to an agreement on.  But Tacoma Oak was perfect—a medium dark tone, really warm, and different from what we had before.

Our home was built in the ‘90s, and the main floor had three different types of flooring: orange-toned, reflective hardwood and two types of tile (beige in the entryway, white in the kitchen). There’s a stairway in the middle and it’s open around that, so you could see the disconnect in the flooring. Rather than this patchwork of three outdated floors, we wanted one type of flooring that would tie the whole space together.

LL: What was the install process like? Any unexpected challenges?

JS: What sold me on this product is that it can be installed over your existing flooring [referred to as floating floor installation], as long as its level [and flat] —and the old flooring was level, but it was very ugly, so it was a no brainer to install it directly over what I had.

The install process was relatively simple—I’ve done tiling and peel-and stick-before, so I’m familiar with the general process. It’s doable for anybody, but the hard part comes in when you have angles, and my home has a lot of 45-degree angles which was pretty tricky. I underestimated how long some complex cuts would take at the end of the stairing, around the baluster, and under the doors. It’s a lot of physical work, but anyone can do it with the right tools and know-how.

LL: What’s been your experience with it since?

JS: It’s so nice—we lived for five years with the stuff that was here before, so having one continuous look that cleans easily is a game-changer. I’ve got a huge dog, two cats, a 6-year-old, plus a very heavy-footed husband, and it’s stood up to all of them.

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